A note from Joe…
Hi friends. Due to my father’s passing earlier this week, we must unfortunately once again cancel this Sunday’s gathering. However, at the wise counsel of our core team, we offer an alternative that touches on the topics we’ve been discussing in our “Sin, Holiness, and the Anthropocene” series this summer. It’s a different view of death and dying than many of us may have considered, presented through the artistic lens of music and spoken word.
Dead Starling Session is a project created by writer, teacher, and grief literacy advocate Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul, for his orphanwisdom.com website. It offers poetic insight into the ways we can embrace some of our fears around death and dying, and empower ourselves to hold a more holistic view.
Follow this link to the YouTube video (we recommend turning captioning on to follow the lyrics). We encourage you to watch the whole film (approx. 45 minutes), but in particular we invite you jump to the segment titled “Fate: Part 1” (21:40-25:13). Then consider some or all of the following questions:
- What feelings, emotional and spiritual, does this video provoke in you?
- How do we sit together in moments when the veil is thin?
- How do we take beloved community with us as we move on from this life?
- What are the “Spirit Prints” you are leaving in the world?
- How do you meet life’s biggest questions?
- Who are the “rough gods” we may need to seek out?
- What might it mean for us to “dance with our demons?”
We also invite you to join the conversation on the video in our Wineskins Workshops Facebook group. Just go to the group page and scroll to the discussion thread to share your thoughts and dialogue with our community.
We‘ll gather again in our NEW WINESKINS VIRTUAL THEOLOGY PUB POWERED BY ZOOM on Sunday, Sept. 10, to finish our summer series. Until then, may grace and peace both comfort and disturb you, and may your own ”Spirit Prints” play a part in transforming the world.
Much love,
Joe
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